


Retributions

by interruptingshark



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Blood and Gore, Child Soldiers, Dark Obi-Wan Kenobi, F/M, Gen, Graphic Description of Injuries, Melida/Daan, No beta we die like younglings, Not Canon Compliant, Obi-Wan Kenobi Leaves the Jedi Order, Obi-Wan Kenobi is Not a Jedi, Obi-Wan stays on melida/daan, Planet Melida | Daan (Star Wars), The Young (Star Wars), like this got waaay more graphic than I originally intended, the force is a semi-sentient being
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29534568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interruptingshark/pseuds/interruptingshark
Summary: Obi-Wan travels with Qui-Gon to Melida/Daan on a mission and what he sees there tears him apart. The gaunt faces of the Young, fighting for the sake of peace, fighting against their own parents, haunt him and he cannot stand by and do nothing. So Obi-Wan stays and fights a war that wasn't his. He stays and leaves the Jedi Order and everything he's worked for and he doesn't regret it. This is what happened.
Relationships: Cerasi/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 6
Kudos: 47





	Retributions

**Author's Note:**

> whoops looks like I finally caved and started writing fics again. I genuinely haven't written a fic since I was like 13 or 14 so here goes nothing I guess. But yeah I'm currently deep in a Star Wars obsession and I'm sinking so here we are, hope you enjoy!
> 
> CW// blood and gore, graphic descriptions of injuries
> 
> This actually got pretty dark but it's set in a civil war with child soldiers so I don't know what I expected

Obi-Wan is thirteen when he goes with Qui-Gon to Melida/Daan. He is thirteen when he sees the war-torn planet, its surface freshly wounded with bloody gashes. He is thirteen when he sees those same wounds marring the bodies and faces of the Young. Faces that should be light and filled with joy, but are instead smeared with grime, aged far beyond their years.

Obi-Wan is thirteen when he feels despair. Real, gut-wrenching, devouring, despair. It is not the same as the despair he felt when he was sent to Bandomeer, his dream of becoming a knight collapsing around him, numbing and dull. Instead it is sharp, like a knife in the back, like someone has grabbed his heart in their hand and _squeezed._ It’s like a blaster bolt in his shoulder when Qui-Gon says they can’t help them, that the Jedi cannot interfere, that even though there is so much suffering and fear, they cannot- _no_ \- _will not_ do anything because it is _not the will of the Force._ His words blister and burn, and his calm nature is so _infuriating_ , _can’t he see them suffering? Can’t he see that_ children _are dying? That they are dying at the hands of their own parents and grandparents?_ He is thirteen when he questions the way of the Force for the first time, when he wonders _how? How can the Jedi be bastions of the Light, of peace,_ luminous beings, _when they allow suffering like this to continue? When they could do_ something, _but won’t? How? How? How?_

_How can Qui-Gon expect him to just_ leave _?_ If this is the way of the force he does not want it.

Obi-Wan is thirteen when he tells Qui-Gon that he _has_ to help the Young. That he can’t leave them to suffer. That his heart won’t let him.

_We must follow the will of the Force, padawan._ Qui-Gon tells him. _You must trust that this conflict will end when it is time. As with all things, it will run its course. You are still young, padawan, you have much to learn, but you will not learn them here. You must understand, the Force pulls us away, we are needed elsewhere. From this you will learn, but not if you stay._

Obi-Wan tells Qui-Gon that he doesn’t believe the Force would want them to leave the Young. _To let them die._ _If the Force flows through us all why would it want us to_ let them die _? Maybe the Force tells you to go, but I have to stay. I will not leave them._

Qui-Gon tells him that he has to decide. It is between the Order and the Young. ( _Between your dreams and your heart_ , is what he doesn’t say, but Obi-Wan hears it anyway)

Obi-Wan is thirteen when he hands Qui-Gon his lightsaber. When the tenuous platform supporting his dreams finally collapses, and dissipates, like dust on the breeze.

Obi-Wan is thirteen when he leaves the Jedi Order.

* * *

Obi-Wan is thirteen when he falls in love for the first time. Or maybe it’s not quite love. Not yet. He meets Cerasi in the remains of a family home- although it has not served that purpose in many years. They meet behind a pile of crates, almost too afraid to breathe, running from the Melida. Or maybe it was the Daan. It didn’t matter. She is like a torch, a flame burning bright in the dark, she shows him how to ~~live~~ survive outside the Order, outside the reach of the gentle creche masters, outside the guidance of his master. Outside everything he has ever known.

Qui-Gon is wrong. Obi-Wan learns. He stays and he learns. He learns to tie tourniquets and clean wounds. Which parts of the body will bleed out fastest and which injuries can be attended to later when they have a moment to breathe. (The truth is that there is never a moment to breathe, only moments of quiet, tense silence, when the Force seems to hold its own breath, waiting for the next move. The next explosive action, when adrenaline _screams_ in his ears and his blood is pumping with a vengeance in his veins, like it's trying to escape, just waiting to splash across the ground and leave another stain on the ground. To soak into the Earth and feed the plants, which seem to thrive on it, clambering and hungering for more, more, _more_ ) Obi-Wan learns to block out the visions the force brings him, like a predator dragging in its prey. Obi-Wan isn’t sure who’s the prey- those in his visions, or him. Instead he builds his shields higher and stronger, fortifying them with durasteel and rock, everyday he builds them thicker, stronger, higher but somehow the Force creeps over them, worming its way in, poisoning his sleep, what little he gets, sometimes with the same horrors he sees each day, but usually much worse. He watches his friends die over and over, Cerasi and Nield, blasted apart, bleeding out, any and every horrid way the Force can torture him, it does. Sometimes the Young in his visions are replaced by his friends from the temple- Bant, Quinlan, Garen. Obi-Wan wonders if this is the Force’s way of punishing him for staying, and if Qui-Gon was right. It doesn’t matter.

Obi-Wan is thirteen when Cerasi dies in his arms. It is nothing like his visions. It is _worse._ He watches her stumble and fall, shrapnel piercing her side, sinking in and embedding itself in her already scar-slashed skin. He risks his life to reach her and drag her back. Although even that has lost its meaning. He risks his life everyday.

Obi-Wan knows loss, but not like this. It _burns_ . It burns like a torrent of fire, melting his flesh from the inside out. It burns and it _rips_ , a knife twisting in his heart tearing through his arteries, slowly and agonisingly.

He burns her body just as the sun sets that evening. He watches it crumble and turn to ash, blown away by the howling wind. Her blood and ash feeds the planet, it takes them in greedily, soaking up his loss. It always, _always_ , wants more.

The war continues. Cerasi’s death means nothing. The Young mourn her, of course they do, but the war rages on.

* * *

Obi-Wan is fourteen when he knows hopelessness. His birthday passed without notice, and Obi-Wan can’t bring himself to care, he just wants this to be over. They are surrounded by the Melida, dozens of blasters pointed at them, aimed with unfeeling eyes. _Surely someone recognises their own child? Do they not see how the Young united to stop this war, not escalate it?_ Perhaps, they don’t care.

Obi-Wan is fourteen when he feels power bubbling up inside of him, the Force seeming to caress his cheek and whisper: _do it_ . There is nothing else to do, the Melida charge their blasters and the Young hold their breath. Waiting. The moment never comes. Obi-Wan reaches for the Force, grabbing the power it offered with both hands and _pulls_ . He unleashes the Force and it’s like a tidal wave, not the gentle ripples he was taught to create as an initiate. No, the Force thunders out and seems to _delight_ in it, he can almost hear its crazed laugh, and part of him wants to laugh too.

Obi-Wan is fourteen when he reaches for the Dark.

Everything stops, and there is a moment of complete stillness. It is like being in the eye of a storm. Then, they explode. The weapons in the hands of the Melida surrounding them, shatter and explode and take their users with them. They collapse one by one, their blood and guts spraying out, covering him, the Young, the ground. Feeding the beast.

Obi-Wan does not sleep that night. He lies awake and realises. He realises what he has done, how fell into the Dark. No. Not fell. _Leaped._ He lept into the Dark and it embraced him and whispered promises of the end of war, the end of suffering, the end of _everything._ It was tempting. The river stone burned in his pocket, reminding him of the temple, of Qui-Gon, of the Light and Obi-Wan knows he cannot allow the Dark to consume him.

The war rages on. For four more years the war rages on and Obi-Wan loses more people than he had ever known as an initiate. The Dark is there, always, at his ear whispering of all the things he could do, how he could end it all, stop his pain. Obi-Wan tries. He tries to avoid the Dark, to shut it out and listen only to the Light, but inevitably he fails. When hopelessness and despair crashes against him in waves and threatens to drown him, he reaches for the power the Force gives him. It offers it up _so easily,_ it is not like the Light, which resists his touch and pulls away no matter how much he tries to listen and _begs_ and _screams._

Obi-Wan is eighteen when the end is in sight. He and Nield and the rest of the Young finally have a plan and an opportunity to execute it. It will be messy and hard and there are a thousand things that could go wrong, but the end is in sight and that’s all that matters.

The plan _works_ . Somehow, it succeeds even though it probably shouldn’t have, it _works_ . They take the parliament, its once clean and sleek halls now covered in debris and blaster scorches and they organise a meeting. The leaders of the Melida and the Daan meet them in the parliament’s domed hall, the rain pouring in where the ceiling has collapsed and drowning out the sound of their words. They don’t matter. They don’t matter because they underestimate the Young, _their children_ . They underestimate them and they pay the price, because Nield and Obi-Wan shoot them where they stand. They drag out their bodies and leave them on the steps of the parliament, and they say that the fighting stops _now_ . The fighting stops _now_ or they will come and kill the rest of them, and they will listen because they already underestimated them once and they would be foolish to do it again. And somehow it works. The fighting stops and they finally, _finally_ sit down to talk.

Obi-Wan is eighteen when he ends a war. He is eighteen and he is scarred and shattered and lost, but the war is over. Obi-Wan cannot stay. He promised he would see the war to the end and he has, but he cannot stay. He has nowhere to go, the temple is the only other place he has known and Force knows he can’t go back there. At best they will turn him out, at worst they will execute him because he _fell._ He _fell_ and he killed and he broke the code a hundred times over and he can’t bring himself to regret it because _why should he? He ended a decades long civil war, why should he regret it?_

Obi-Wan is eighteen and turns tired eyes to the stars. He boards the first ship he finds and asks for work and maybe the captain looks at his broken and battered body and takes pity on him because she lets him stay.

Obi-Wan is eighteen and has seen enough violence to last a lifetime, maybe more. But now he makes his way across the stars and the galaxy to find somewhere where he can start to breathe again, where he can allow the shredded remains of his heart to beat again and he can finally learn to live.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I messed around with the Legends timeline a bit- the war on Melida/Daan technically ends in 44 BBY, the same year Obi-Wan goes there, but I extended it a bit so it actually ends in 39 BBY, if any of you are interested in that kind of stuff. Because of this, obviously the war ends differently and Cerasi dies differently to Legends canon.
> 
> Also I'm thinking of making a sequel? It would follow Obi-Wan's adventures after he leaves Melida/Daan and the tone will probably be quite different and significantly lighter lol since I'm not sure how much more of this kind of stuff I could do- it was pretty depressing to write
> 
> Anyway I hope you enjoyed this- I loved writing it (even if it was dark and depressing)- let me know what you thought!


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